Published: Nov. 21, 2000

Michael Holleran, associate professor of planning and design at the University of Colorado at Denver, will lecture on the role of irrigation ditches in urban environments on Tuesday, Dec. 5, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Old Main Chapel on the CU-Boulder campus.

Holleran will discuss the role urban ditches have played in the West, demonstrating how they have posed hazards and been viewed as potential carriers of disease, carried wastewater, served as ad hoc systems of street drainage and also carried water to feed the thirsty greenery of cities. He also will discuss the natural beauty that ditches have added to Western cities such as Boulder and Denver.

The program is free and open to the public and is hosted by the CU-Boulder Center of the American West. For more information contact the Center of the American West at (303) 492-4879 or visit the Web site at .